Most women in the world do not get health care unless they are pregnant. Healthcare has decided that if women only come in when they are pregnant, then they will do all the testing possible during that childbearing year. It doesn't matter if the woman is monogamous. It doesn't matter if she doesn't show any clinical indication for a vaginal exam. It doesn't matter that she is well-read and knows what she does and does not want in her care. She will be treated as one of the pack of women who are herded through... test after test assumed to be taken/given... no questions asked. Volume does not allow for individuality. Individuality requires time and healthcare as it is offered to most of the women of the world does not offer time.

Why would a newborn get treatment normally reserved for sexually transmitted diseases?

Erythromycin in the eyes and HepB shots are two major red flags of the assumption of women's whore-dom in our medical community. It doesn't matter if you were tested and shown to have no STD's (the term now is sexually transmitted infections - STI's)... that you are a single woman... that you are monogamous. None of that matters. It is assumed you are lying or have been cheated on (lied to) by your partner.

Again, if the only care a woman/baby gets is in the hospital during birth, as many tests and treatments as possible are going to be shoved onto the dyad. Individuality does not exist. Mass thoughts/beliefs are in motion; not logic.

But, if I have a cesarean, why would my baby still get erythromycin in his/her eyes since the only way to get chlamydia and gonorrhea into their eyes is via the vagina?

Because individual thoughts would undoubtedly mean some babies are left out and it is easier to blanket them all with the eye ointment than to have to mark on charts who was delivered by which method. How time consuming! Remember, there is no time.

Why would my child be offered so many vaccinations when I was vaccinated against so few things?

Because the pharmaceutical companies make BILLIONS of dollars on vaccinations (please don't call them immunizations because they absolutely do not immunize). Doctors are given bonuses for every vaccination they give a child. They are courted, wined, dined, cruised, flown to Europe, given lavish gifts and TONS of money by pharmaceutical companies simply for giving formula and shots to our children.

If they know that mercury makes the kids sick, why do they continue using vaccinations that have thimerasol or mercury?

Because there are years of vaccinations on shelves that have to be used up. The mercury in them is what extends their shelf life many years. So, the pharmaceutical companies are not lying when they say they aren't making vaccinations with thimerasol or mercury any more, but they don't say that they have barely tapped into the stock on the shelves that do have those contaminants.

Why does my care provider (midwife/OB/nurse/doula/friend) scare me with stories because I don't want all the testing they want to do?To cover their asses in court. They are taught that unless they tell you every nasty thing that can go wrong, they aren't covered in court. Does that mean they will also tell you all the positives about NOT testing? Absolutely not. No one has been sued for having a positive outcome to an AFP/GTT/GBS/etc. screen or test. Doctors and hospitals have been sued for not writing down that they expressly "informed" their patient about the risks of refusing the test. Also, because it is part of human nature to make someone do something we did ourselves... or make them feel guilty if they don't. If we accept that someone we care about or who has hired us might not choose the same thing we have, then someone must be wrong, right?

Why do women tell me such horror stories about the pain of birth?Birth stories have, in this culture, been the feminine equivalent of a man's war stories... getting bigger, more painful, more dramatic with each re-telling. When women in my life are questioning birth options/locations, I often tell them that if they got 12 women together... 6 who'd started out at home (and most had birthed at home) and 6 who'd started out in the hospital, they would hear 2 distinct differences in birth stories.

The home group invariably shares the pain, the exhaustion, the fears that the hospital group also expresses. But, the home group also speaks of elation, pride, joy, and the power of accomplishment. The hospital group goes on to describe ever-increasing pain, numbness, disrespect, immobility, helplessness, and despair that would shock the home birth group... even those that transfered into the hospital after their homebirth attempt. Which story do YOU want to tell?

Again, women want others to validate their own choices of elective cesareans, of epidurals early in labor, of choosing an expensiveOB... so they belittle the woman who chooses to be (in her eyes) a martyr, an animal, less-evolved woman who might as well squat in the backyard and eat her placenta. If she can't feel right in her own choices, make the other woman feel like shit about hers and then the top dog wins, right? (We know it doesn't work that way, but that haughty woman does not.)

Why would I be told anytime in the pregnancy that I might have to have a cesarean?

So you aren't disappointed if it happens.

If you have it in your mind already that your baby is too big, your pelvis too small, your hormones too old, your body too skinny, your body too fat, your psyche too fucked up, your uterus is tilted, your baby is posterior, your baby is breech, you have twins, you have to have continuous electronic monitoring, you have to be induced, this might be the only baby your body will ever be able to carry, you are too short, you are too poor, you are too rich, you have diabetes, you have epilepsy, you have a hangnail, you don't eat right, you don't drink enough water, you didn't go to childbirth class, you didn't practice your breathing, you didn't do perineal massage, you didn't do yoga, you didn't Believe hard enough, your karma is in control, and any of the other gazillion and one excuses that are shoved down women's throats and into their minds... if you already think you are defective, then having a cesarean just proves it.